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The underground economy of solitary confinement

themarshallproject.org

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Re: The underground economy of solitary confinement

#81

Post by ROTMetro »

randomacct8162 wrote: post #8
bag_boy wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you summarize the experience in thirds? For example, what was the first 30 days like versus the last 30?

The first two weeks were very difficult. You have to sort of mentally come to peace with the fact that you're shut in this tiny room and you can't leave. It feels very claustrophobic and if you're the type that has anxiety disorders you will probably have to ward off panic attacks. After the first two weeks, time started to slowly speed up, and the days all sort of blurred together. Thankfully I was able to get a new…

Also, at least where I was, this was EVERYONE's life (no just solitary) for a year due to COVID. Only with no legal protections, all constitutional requirements waived, because, you know, emergency, and totally not just because the staff were lazy and this allowed them to do zero work.

Re: The underground economy of solitary confinement

#82

Post by ROTMetro »

mgkimsal wrote: post #25
randomacct8162 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was on computers a lot as a kid and sort of taught myself programming (very poorly) in my early years. When I caught this charge, I had just turned 18. It really ruined my life. Currently, I work in tech. For a very long time I was barely making ends meet, working in a fast food restaurant for minimum wage while trying to interview to get a developer job. I went through 8 interview processes, and received offers fr…

Had to go search for it, but YC funded a company - https://www.70millionjobs.com - that focuses on felon-friendly companies hiring.

FElon friendly normally ends up meaning they know you have no other options and treat you about as good as you would imagine a company with complete knowledge that if you loose your job your PO could send you back to prison. Hello mandatory overtime, horrible pay, every shit task no one wants. It's way better to try and convince somewhere that isn't felon friendly to try and hire you.

Re: The underground economy of solitary confinement

#83

Post by onemoresoop »

ROTMetro wrote: post #76
Cthulhu_ wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't make apologies for people who choose torture and who chose to participate in said system / culture. It's a job; if they had morals they would quit, whistleblow, or punish colleagues for this behaviour. I can't believe the pay would be THAT good. There's clearly no adequate chain of command or repercussions for this crime.

Don't forget the thin blue line. The pressure to not snitch among them is huge, and comes from the top. During my time in I watched all of the decent COs become alcoholics/drug addicts and ultimately quit. We had one decent 'counselor' out of 5, and she was forced out for unauthorized use of government resources because she printed out a compassionate release request during COVID because inmates we illegally denied a…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diesel_therapy

Re: The underground economy of solitary confinement

#84

Post by Gustomaximus »

randomacct8162 wrote: post #32
RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #27

What is the alternative to solitary confinement? There are some people who are a persistent threat and menace to others. There are 3 ways that society has dealt with them: Execution Banishment Imprisonment We are trying to do away with execution, so that is not a real alternative. Banishment really doesn't work in the modern, connected world. That leaves imprisonment. However, within prison, you also have a society,…

FWIW, I am not against the death penalty. It makes much more economic sense than life in prison (it costs ludicrous amounts of money to house prisoners per-annua) and as someone who has done prison time my personal opinion is I'd rather be killed than face the mental agony of living the rest of my days in there. I'm not sure why so many people are against it or think it's inhumane. I think it's a bit silly considerin…

> I'm not sure why so many people are against it or think it's inhumane.

1) There are endless cases of it being implemented on innocent people:

https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/stories/technical-errors-can-ki... or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wrongful_execution

2) Ethical reasons believing its wrong to kill people

3) Its well documented the process of death penalty has regular mistakes causing slow and incredibly painful deaths.

E.g. https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/executions/botched-executions

Re: The underground economy of solitary confinement

#85

Post by ROTMetro »

mgkimsal wrote: post #25
randomacct8162 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was on computers a lot as a kid and sort of taught myself programming (very poorly) in my early years. When I caught this charge, I had just turned 18. It really ruined my life. Currently, I work in tech. For a very long time I was barely making ends meet, working in a fast food restaurant for minimum wage while trying to interview to get a developer job. I went through 8 interview processes, and received offers fr…

Had to go search for it, but YC funded a company - https://www.70millionjobs.com - that focuses on felon-friendly companies hiring.

So I just signed up for this site. It has Home Depot who won't hire you if you are on paper (supervised release) and other companies that will bring you on 'temp to hire' when they have need, but will seldom convert a felon to permanent. Shows a lack of understanding or communication with the people they are trying to 'help'. I got better support from the other guys my first 15 minutes in the half way house than this site gives. And that is in general how society is toward felons. A lot of half assed stuff to feel like, no look at all these services, they have a chance. But in reality not so much.

Re: The underground economy of solitary confinement

#86

Post by ROTMetro »

leetcrew wrote: post #42
Dieselroar88 wrote: post #24

Did 20 months in federal for selling cannabis. Also spent time in solitary. Conditions are far worse than you could imagine. Also, many prisons are functionally solitary so the 4% number is way low. The economic networks in prisons are wild, and of course there are incentives for guards to participate. Not only are there massive number of cell phones in prisons, there are cell phones in solitary because the guards sm…

> The economic networks in prisons are wild, and of course there are incentives for guards to participate. maybe a naive question, but where does all the money come from? I can understand that prisoners would trade favors and artificially scarce items (eg cigarettes) amongst themselves. but what's in it for the guards? I wouldn't expect a bunch of people that aren't allowed to have jobs to have a ton of cash to throw…

Where I was a single letter covered is K2, spice, whatever you want to call it is worth $1500 minimum.The inmate distributing it got $500 of that. Who knows where that $1000 went. And that was for K2, spice, a super crappy drug.

Re: The underground economy of solitary confinement

#87

Post by ROTMetro »

Dieselroar88 wrote: post #24

Did 20 months in federal for selling cannabis. Also spent time in solitary. Conditions are far worse than you could imagine. Also, many prisons are functionally solitary so the 4% number is way low. The economic networks in prisons are wild, and of course there are incentives for guards to participate. Not only are there massive number of cell phones in prisons, there are cell phones in solitary because the guards sm…

THIS! Almost all inmates are illegally kept in functional solitary and/or unconstitutional conditions. 30% of my long term facility was classified 'short term housing' because they were not constitutionally allowed to keep people in those cells longer than 3 months due to the long term psychological damage of such small spaces. Dudes had been in their cells 10 years. One guy almost won a case about it, but they just moved him and boom, he no longer had standing for his court case, everything dropped, and no court following saying 'hey we found that this guy was in unconstitutional conditions maybe we should check things out'. Nope, just dropped. Another fun example, the US Courts have ruled that lights on all night preventing sleep is torture. They have a more recent finding that it isn't torture if it is determined it is needed for safety. All the effects of not sleeping for 4 years were totally undone once I learned it was for safety and it wasn't torture.

Re: The underground economy of solitary confinement

#88

Post by mywittyname »

kingcharles wrote: post #54

I did three stints in solitary. First for writing to my wife and explaining how I traded coffee for stamped envelopes, which got me an extortion charge. On the last day of my "sentence" in solitary I had my trial and was found "not guilty" of the charge. Of course, it was like Alice in Wonderland, I did my time then got my trial. (during this time in solitary though they went through all my property and figured out I…

> jailhouse lawyers

What does this mean? Were you a regular lawyer before becoming a jailhouse lawyer? Are you a regular lawyer after being a jailhouse lawyer?

Re: The underground economy of solitary confinement

#89

Post by kstenerud »

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #27

What is the alternative to solitary confinement? There are some people who are a persistent threat and menace to others. There are 3 ways that society has dealt with them: Execution Banishment Imprisonment We are trying to do away with execution, so that is not a real alternative. Banishment really doesn't work in the modern, connected world. That leaves imprisonment. However, within prison, you also have a society,…

Oddly enough, Western European countries don't have this problem, and have a significantly lower recidivism rate. Perhaps ask them how they do it?

I believe there are even documentaries now that explore justice systems in various countries.

This is not to attack you or anything, but rather to highlight a cultural divide. To European ears this kind of question feels like it's right up there with "What else can you do but behead a man who runs off with your daughter?" It's really jarring to hear, and makes one think that such a culture is incredibly backwards and barbaric...

Re: The underground economy of solitary confinement

#90

Post by alexpotato »

stinkytaco wrote: post #52
alexpotato wrote: post #9

This article reminded me of this economics paper from a former World Ware 2 prisoner of war describing the "market economy" that formed in the POW camps. http://icm.clsbe.lisboa.ucp.pt/docentes/url/jcn/ie2/0POWCamp... It's fascinating because it describes: - Open outcry markets - Exchange rates - N dimensional preference spaces - Collapsing money supplies - Market shocks All in plain English and using specific exampl…

Also interesting the Sarajevo Survival Guide [1]. Similar, but with a more tongue in cheek and modern bent. Made me want to stockpile cigarettes and pornography. [1]: http://www.friends-partners.org/bosnia/surintro.html

This was excellent, thanks!
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